Fantastic Force
by Haikufrenzy
Summary: On Earth-910, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, She-Hulk, Human Torch, and their leader Spider-Man find themselves brought into action to stop an alien menace from destroying and whatever other evil they can take down before they have to finish homework.
1. Chapter One

New York City, Queens Borrough

The red haze from the morning sun slowly rose past the many skyscrapers and buildings of the Big Apple as all the city began it's busy morning. Nothing was particularly unusual that day, all the typical downer news designed to be sensationalist as always, all the cars blared their horns at one another like it was going to matter. Nothing out of the ordinary, for now at least.

In Queens, a rather beat up looking 1994 Ford Taurus sat two people, on the road driving towards Forest Hills High School. The driver, the younger of the two, tapped his finger on the top of the steering wheel as he looked on. A bit of a smile on his face as he didn't seemed bothered by the silence. Just enjoying the music, leaning his non steering wheel gripped arm onto the car door with it's window down, and occasionally putting a little shove into the steering wheel and yelling ahead for the driver of the car in front of them to move ahead, usually throwing in vulgar language in the process. As this was going on his older brother in the passenger seat looked over, quietly wondering to himself just how his younger brother can be so... happy all the time, probably because he wasn't the social dunce between them. For Peter Richards, the comparisons between him and his younger brother Nathan are blatant. Nathan was a bit nerdy true, but he had a good kinship with a lot of people at school, was a regular with the school's theater and it's shows, and a member of the school's student activities committee.

Peter meanwhile was an intellectual genius. Already being noticed by science experts in plenty of different fields, as well as universities practically begging him to come to their school. However even as a straight A student, none of that could cheer him up lately. It was a clear as day fact that he could count all of his best friends on one hand, he usually spends more time in his 'workshop' (aka the family's tool shed in the back yard) than in actual sunlight. All in all, it was just becoming harder for him to meet new people and socialize. He just felt lost, like despite what people are saying that he isn't going the right way in life. He glanced down at himself; he just looked like he wasn't out to impress, short sloppy looking brown hair, a black hoodie, loose jeans, a baggy Tron t-shirt, and some sneakers that have clearly seen better days. Then he looked over at his brother. Styled looking short cut, a pair of prescription glasses (thank god he was lucky in that regard, Peter was already nerdy enough), some light blue and white plaid button up, nice clean jeans, and a much nicer looking pair of converse shoes. That was the sad part in his mind; he was getting shown up by his younger brother, what the hell happened?

Not too far away from where they were, a Mazda RX-8, dark blue, clean, and hardly looking a day off the showroom floor, was also on it's way to the high school. The two in the car, a boy at the steering wheel, sharp blond hair that was short and professionally groomed, with shades, a leather jacket, shirt, jeans, and new skate shoes, all of which clearly wasn't cheap. With his step sister in the passenger seat, someone typically known for being extremely cheery and almost ditzy, only now, struggling though some form of rebellion that is her new home and life. While she would normally have on bright colored shirts and long flowing skirts, now she had on a black mid riff t shirt, tight blue jeans with jewel stuttering on the front of the left pocket, and sandals. That plus the light blue backpack she couldn't bring herself to get rid of, and it's clear that she maybe isn't doing the whole 'emo' thing correctly. Still though she was mad, mad that she had to change her last name, that her mom married some rich business man, that when she tried to express her anger all it gave her was a lost of almost all of her friends and boyfriend.

Both were extremely quiet to one another. The radio wasn't on; past rides to school have shown they couldn't even agree with what station to listen too. Jason Storm gripped the steering wheel, giving a sigh that was a mixture of boredom, and annoyance over the fact that even if he tried to speak to her, he'll either get a grunt and be ignored, or worse a sudden argument on his hands. Meanwhile Alice Daniels Storm just had to look over at him, at what he was driving, what he was wearing, spoiled little brat, probably never worked a day in his life.

As both cars pulled up to the high school, parking right next to one another in a clear distinction between one another, Peter immediately got his backpack was out of the car before Nathan could even turn the car off. "See ya Nate..." Peter let meekly slip from his throat before heading in. Nathan just shook his head, same old same old right there, as he took his time to get his things and leave the car as he spotted Alice in the corner of his eye. He hasn't let Susan's recent mean streaks get to him like the others. He's a friend, through and through. Not to mention that with the fact that Mr. Storm has been incredibly friendly with him, and Jason likewise, that this was all just a phase and she'll get over it... hopefully.

As Jason got himself out of the quiet hellhole of the car as quickly as possible, Nathan made his way over, giving Jason a small nod to greet him before approaching Alice as she got her backpack out of the back. "Alice what's up girl?" Nathan asked the friendliness of his voice and style in full effect. "Still 'fighting the power' like always?" He asked, putting up quotation fingers as they both looked over at Jason trying to catch up with Peter, but neither particularly caring at that moment. "I'm not fighting the power." She corrected, a brief moment wondering how someone like Jason could be friends with a quiet nerd like Peter. Than again she didn't really know him, despite him being friends with his younger brother, just never really got around to it. The both of them began their way to the school as Nathan was splitting his time between Susan and all the various students waving or saying hi to him. "Well I guess that answers the question for the day about how your feeling. So let's skip to my personal favorite, 'what on earth is bugging Susan today?' Did her mother buy her a new shirt without getting permission first? Did Jason ask a favor of her? DID FATHER DARE LOOK AT HER?" Nathan joked, holding the back of his hand up to his forehead. It was probably the acting classes and aspirations that caused him to be like this sometimes. Susan just rolled her eyes and shook her head at what was at best stupidly silly behavior from her friend. "But seriously, I know I've asked this like a billion times now, but God aren't you just getting bored with being angry like this Sue?" Nathan asked, trying to make it clear he was done with the jokes for the time being. There was an awkward silence between the two as Susan just shrugged at Nathan, unable to really say anything. Was she getting bored? She didn't know. She still _felt_ mad, so she assumed that was a no. Was she happy with how she acted? Obviously not.

Karen Walters didn't drive to school today, walking instead considering that she didn't live too far from school, and her rehabilitation consultant told her getting the leg moving would help. She peeled the wrap around headphones off of her ears as she stretched her arms and legs a little. Her dark brown hair in a braid coming down to the midway point of her back, she had an athletic shirt the high school gave her on, as well as khakis and some running shoes. Their was a slight but noticeable limp in her right leg as she approached school, all ready a bit of sweat on her she wiped off her forehead with forearm. As she got to the door she saw two people in particular making their way in. Peter and Jason, both good friends of her. Jason due to a family connection, Peter because when they were younger she saved him from a bully beat down, and now he's stuck with her. She was able to get in front of Peter.

"Hey Peter! God I'm so glad to see you right now!" She told him, a nice smile making it clear she meant it. "Did you do your science homework?" "Yeah... like always." Peter stated, not in a condescending, or pompous way, it sounded more like frustration and regret, somehow. To him it was just a continuation of monotony, "You?" He asked to Karen. "God I was trying too but I'm totally stuck on this one part." Karen swung around her backpack, yanking out a stapled grouping of three pages. "This one is really confusing, so, like, what am I even doing with this problem?" Peter looked over what she had written for her homework, and it didn't take long for him to pull out a pencil from his own backpack and get to work writing something on the top of the page. "Well, you're on the right track, but when it comes to solving these kind of situations I prefer using this equation instead of what they teach in the text. It's a lot simpler, and narrows the margin of error. Now you can just plug in the numbers and go." Karen looked at the paper for a brief moment, clearly having the math go on in her head, but finally she grinned. "Dude! That does make more sense. Thanks professor Richards!" She said to Peter, using her little nick name for him.

Karen arm swung around Peter's neck in what was suppose to be the start of a hug but came more across like the start of a noogie. "So how's life anyways?" "Uh... fine..." Peter replied, clearly uncomfortable and using the least believable tone ever. Slipping out of her grasp he started away but turned back to Karen. "Uh, I promised someone I would go over some things with them before they take a test later. But I'll talk to you later, alright? Bye." Peter then jogged off, hating he just lied to his friend, but that conversation just wasn't going to end well for him if he stuck around.

As Karen watched Peter leave, slightly confused. Jason came up behind her with a bottle of soda in hand. "You think he left just to get rid of us?" He asked casually to her as she turned her head to him, a slight smirk on her lips. "Hey either way, the guy's a god send when it comes to homework." She reminded Jason, eying his drink as she could feel her own thirst coming on.

Class wasn't that hard for Alice, not really because she was super smart or something like that. It was more because there was nothing to be mad about. With Jason and her having completely different schedules, and running in different groups, she could just keep her nose on the grind stone and focus on something. She could talk to Nathan from time to time, but was, over all, careful to keep away from those horrible topics of her feelings. But she also liked how the halls would be empty during her off period and the classes were full. It gave her space to just let herself walk, try to think her way to an answer, some version of it at least.

She didn't know how long she was walking when suddenly she saw him. Flash Thompson, the hottest guy in the whole school, and her boyfriend... well _was_ her boyfriend, until she kept refusing to use her new family and its money and status for him. She frowned as he rounded the corner, fearing confrontation if she didn't act quickly. Flash was a bully on his best days, and on his worst? Downright cruel. Without too much thought she ducked into a nearby empty classroom where she ducked down under the window, hearing his footsteps as he went past her. She sighed frustrated to herself, swearing that she wasn't such a coward. However once the situation calmed she heard a feverish scribbling on the chalkboard ahead of her. Looking up she saw Peter Richards, scribbling away on the chalkboard a cathedral of math and science equations.

Peter had finished his class early and needed something to sink his teeth into to get rid of his own tormenting thoughts. No better way than to just put himself though an assault to his scientifical skills really in his mind. Finally a stall in his work caused him to realize that there was in fact someone else in the classroom now. He glanced over and realized it was Alice. He didn't know her very well, but being friends with her step brother had noticed her often. There's been plenty of stories on both sides about her, but then again the school rumor system was usually full of it.

"Ducking Flash?" Peter asked, giving her a small smile. "I won't tell him where you are if you don't tell him where I am." He joked, the smile slowly fading as he shuffled his feet nervously and went right back to his work. "I wouldn't worry about that, doing it would involve going back out there." She told him, standing slowly and glancing out the window. She didn't see him but assumed the coast wasn't clear yet, the one time she had to show off to him, what he had missed out on, and she had lost her bravery. She slipped down the blinds and closed the door behind herself as she decided to focus on something else, and since the only thing right now available is a giant wall of math and the shy geek she hasn't spoken too much, she'll just go ahead and roll with it. "So, uh," She got closer to the board, trying to understand the math, and to an extent seeing stuff she was familiar with. She was okay with math, much better with biology and such; it interested her more, since she wanted to become a surgeon some day. "What are you up too?"

"...well...I'm trying to figure out how to make a chemical compound I've been working on to actually work without giving off crazy side effects. I've tried it three times now and every time I end up either throwing up or passing out for exactly five straight hours. I almost didn't know what day it was when I woke up this morning." Peter joked... sort of. His nervousness with being around people wasn't making this easy for him, especially considering the woman in front of him, who was needless to say, incredibly pretty in his eyes, especially with the tight clothes she was wearing... he kept his face towards the board to hide the slowly glowing light shade of red on his face. "So... uh... how are you?" He asked, hoping he didn't already scare her off with his nerdiness.

The question went ignored by Alice, who was examining the board carefully, she had looked into drug chemicals and all that, it was fascinating to her, the concept of being able to invent something to help. "Well, if you're passing out..." She absently paused her words until finally she pointed something out on the chalkboard. "Here's the problem, I see this combo a lot in sleeping pills. Mind you, not that _amount_." She turned to look at him, "I wouldn't suggest taking it again unless you lower that. You could overdose, you know assuming you stay awake long enough." Finally she realized what he had asked, she shrugged, reaching for a backpack on her to fiddle with, only she didn't have it. "You...know... and stuff." She answered, good generic answer to go with. Peter glanced at her, then back up onto the board, silent, and shocked. How did he not notice that before? Granted medical science wasn't his strong suit. But Alice noticed it immediately, which told him it defiantly wasn't her weakest suit. "...You're right. Thank you, it's been driving me crazy for weeks. You've got a good eye for medical stuff." Peter complimented as he reached over and wiped away the horrible mistake.

"It's uh, well it's my dream." She told him with another, more progressively awkward shrug. "To be a surgeon or a doctor or something like that. I like to know the chemical stuff to medicine, figured it help." She responded. Peter turned away from the board finally to look at her, and it was clear something was bothering her. "Actually I don't think... well I mean I've never really talked to you face to face before. It's always thought Jason or my brother." Peter put down the piece of chalk, as his lacking social skills did pick up on something. "Is something bothering you? If you don't want to talk I'm completely cool with it... believe me. But if you do, you can tell me. I know I'm not really one of your friends but..." He trailed off a bit, this wasn't any of his business, and he shouldn't be prying into her life. He just couldn't help himself though, if someone needed help, he always had to try, even if the subject was out of his comfort zone.

She glanced at him again, a little surprised he put down the chalk, most people, including Peter's younger brother Nathan who she adored, accepted all the outs she gave them.

Then again Peter hasn't heard the tirade yet.

She looked down to the ground. "Just, kind of stupid I guess. Everyone thinks so. My mom just remarried, to Jason's dad and they're technically okay." She gave them a very grudging pass, "Jason is annoying and I still think he's fake and Mr. Storm is..." She trailed off, just wrinkling her nose. "I don't even know what he is. It just bugs me, the changes and all that and as soon as it happens, all of a sudden it's not...enough that I'm me. No, now we all have to go to 'my' place, which I hate, it's huge and cold and has strangers everywhere. Who wants to LIVE with servants anyway?" she asked, really getting steamed now. The shyness melted away to the anger that was boiling inside.

"I didn't want to go. I didn't want to accept the money and the gifts and the stuff. My mom and I survived fine for years. I don't _NEED_ all that stuff. I don't _NEED_ a car or jewels, or any of that shit! I can get anything I need." She pouted on the last line turning away. "So Flash, everyone really, dumped me. I wasn't fucking good enough anymore." Her voice nearly broke and she grasped at the anger, tucking away the depression. It was all now anger she could handle, anger she could express. "And I just... just... FUCK!" She turned and in a mighty swing kicked a trash can that slammed violently against the wall. "All because she had to marry him, everything had to change. Everything."

Sue swung back to Peter. "And it's _MY_ fault that I can't adapt. You know? I didn't ask for this. I didn't do anything for this. But it's still my fault. Well fuck it." She threw her hands in the air, then folded them against her chest. "I'll show them whose fault it is." she muttered with a huff.

It took a minute, for the rant to settle and the embarrassment to rise as she finally, slowly, came back to the real world. "Uh." Her cheeks darkened. "Sorry. You probably didn't need to know all that. Nathan is great though." She added. "He doesn't give two damns about who my mom married." Even if he did tend to be little Sue's feelings.

After the tirade, Alice noticed that Peter wasn't shocked or irritated like other people have been. A little bit into it he sat down onto a chair and just listened, getting startled a bit when she kicked the garbage can, but more because it was loud. He simply nodded his head, watching intently, silently, taking in her words. This was completely different then the rumors made it out to be. "I can understand why you're upset. I mean...I've never been in that situation, but I can imagine the kind of frustration that would cause. Everything is going fine, nothing wrong just living your life, then suddenly you're told that everything is changing and before you know it you're living a strange house and people see you differently because of it. You aren't given any time to adjust before accusations of 'not giving a chance' come in, and most of your friends expect you to give them something in return for 'being your friends', when that's exactly what makes them not your friends." Peter said, shaking his head. "God you've been holding all that in? Wow... you're a lot tougher than I am. I would've gone insane by now if I had gone though all that." He told her, being completely honest. "Uh... sorry about that, didn't mean to jump in there. You can continue if you want."

Sue stared at him. No one, NO ONE, had ever told her she had a right to her feelings since they came to fruition. Even her mother who was normally on her side had nearly begged her to take it easy. She shifted a little, thinking about how difficult she was making things. Finally pushing the guilt aside to focus on the boy in front of her. "No, I'm done." She hesitated but sat down next to him, giving him one shy smile. "Um... thanks for listening. Most people aren't that interested anymore. It has been going on for a while. Yeah it's just... embarrassing to realize that all those people you spent time with and cared about didn't really care about you." She thought of Flash, he was the real sore spot. Not because he broke her heart, but because he got to do the dumping when he was the creep. Didn't seem fair at all.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed; people can be very cunning in the way they hide their true nature. You could think you know someone better than you know yourself, and then they turn around and do something bad... or good... something you just didn't expect." Peter mentioned. At first he was a little nervous when she sat down next to him, but he pushed the feeling deep down, realizing the last thing she needed now was someone running from her. Even if, in his case, it was for a completely different reason than anyone else. "I'm... I really am not the best talker, unless you want to talk about some no doubt nerdy subject I know something about. So usually I just listen, I'd like to think I'm very good at that. Everybody assumes they know how they would react in your shoes, when no one really knows for sure." Peter told her, giving him a small smile. "You seem like a tough person, and a good one. You shouldn't let... assholes like Flash turn you into something else. He never deserved something nice like you, it's his loss as far as I'm concerned."

Peter immediately realized how incredibly corny he must've sounded. Suddenly a tad bit on the embarrassed side, and deep down thanking the Heavens above Nathan wasn't there to make fun of him for the lame speech. He slowly stood up and grabbed his backpack, trying, and failing miserably, to hide his face turning red again. "Well... uh... it's almost time for my next class." There's that meek, repressed side of him again, slipping right back out on schedule. "If you ever want to talk again or anything... just stop by, I'm usually here or at the house..." He pulled up his backpack over his shoulder, quickly heading for the door. His eyes staring at his own feet as he moved. However if he had looked up, he would've seen Susan's face turn just as red as his. So red that she couldn't get the ability to speak up until he was gone. "Thanks," She whispered to herself and looked down at her own hands. Peter Richards, that name meant something completely different to her now. She knew him, didn't dislike him of course, but just didn't know much about him. He was quiet and before all this, she was loud, popular, and fun loving.

God, no wonder Nathan was probably getting sick of her mood.

Still, she glanced out the door and tucked some hair behind her ear as she stood. Peter had listened, had cared. She shifted a little, her cheeks growing darker as she left, knowing she also had class in a little bit.

He said... he'd like to see her again...


	2. Chapter Two

As the school day finally came to an end, Nathan drove himself and his older brother back home in the clunker as it putted along. Once again the car's inside was quiet, discounting the local rock station. Nathan hadn't seen Alice since that morning, not that he minded, that was the kind of person one should only take in small doses, least you wind up with a headache.

As the car finally pulled up to the house there was commotion going on out front, as their parents, Jennifer and Gabriel Richards, were both dragging luggage and boxes over to their car. Nathan killed his car's engine as he stopped on the driveway and got out, glancing around for a moment. "Uh, what's going on?" Nathan cautiously asked, grabbing his backpack as he poked his head out of the car. "Well kids, work wanted me to go to Boston for a couple days, major deals and all that. I'm sure you understand." Their father told his two boys who both glanced at one another then back at him, Nathan acting as the interpreter between them. "No... no I don't but whatever, when are you guys going to be back?" "Well today's Tuesday right?" Their mother chimed in, squeezing her husband's shoulder and the two giving one another that look that make the children want to hurl. "We should be back about Saturday night." She stopped, making sure to give both of her boys a big hug. "Now you two don't get into any trouble okay? We still want to see this house in one piece when we return!" She joked as she waved to the both of them, getting into their car in the process. Neither brother could get much time to wave back before their parents were long gone.

"Well... that was sudden." Nathan finally spoke up out loud, not quite sure how else to put it. Peter meanwhile was glad they were going to be gone. He had already tried to explain his situation to his father, but he just told him that it was a 'phase', and that he would get over it. He wished it were that easy, he honestly did. "Empty house again, wish I could say I'm surprised." Peter commented, grabbing his backpack and opening it looking for his personal notepad. "Yeah but it's not too bad." Nathan started, "Think of all the horrible things we can do while they're gone. Keggers, naked orgies, I could even try to set up a really gay sorority sleepover for you! Now wouldn't that be fun?" Nathan joked as he stepped into the house, immediately starting up the stairs to his room to work on homework. Peter simply shook his head, younger brothers... Still he knew Nathan was probably going to have a lot of guests over, something pretty common he just learned to ignore.

"Right." Peter started, he was going to head to his workshop, aka the backyard's tool shed that he converted into an area for him to work on things. "First off, what makes you think you could possibly survive an orgy? For all you know you're probably more 'catcher' than 'pitcher'. Secondly, I know you, the moment it starts you'd turn into a giggling idiot who'd have no idea what's going on." Peter strolled off as Nathan laughed to himself while on the stairs. "Yeah sure whatever takes one to know one dude." He called back before laughing to himself, going upstairs. As Peter slipped out the back door all he could want to do at that point was get away from everything, try to figure out why he felt so bad. If that didn't work, then at least get some work done on his now revised formula before calling it a night.

Peter sat at his desk in the rather large shed, trying to figure out what to put into the new blank section of this formula. He twirled the marker around in his hand, staring at the large whiteboard in front of him. He had to figure out something similar that wouldn't cause the same mistake as the last idea, but it wasn't easy as it sounded. Susan had shown him where he messed up before, rather easily no less. It was causing him to not only reproach the problem slower and with greater preparation, but also think back to earlier with Susan, which brought a brief smile to his face. That is until he remembered how suddenly he left. He hoped she now doesn't consider him some kind of spaz after that. He had a sudden idea though for how to fix the formula, bringing a wide smile to his face as he started to write it down.

Just then he heard a small noise behind him, and turned around to see that one of his older inventions, a 'radio' designed to be strong enough to hopefully find signals in space, hopefully of the extraterrestrial kind. It had never worked right, and was dubbed a failure...yet as it began to crackle to life, Peter couldn't help but be curious. He began to hear strange noises coming through it, noises that he couldn't even compare to anything he had heard before, but definitely organic based, possibly a voice.

The noises coming from the radio started growing in pitch, a faint rumbling occurring around him, perhaps not enough for everyone in the city to notice, but it caught his attention. Suddenly Peter sprung into action, grabbing his radio and upon leaving the shed just tweaking the knobs on it until he could figure out which direction the radio's feed was coming from, what made him worry was how he realized, after brief math equitation in his head, Peter realized it wasn't too far. Immediately and without putting any thought to it. Peter ran back into the house and out to the driveway. Stopping for a moment to try and think. He remembered just where Nathan always kept an extra car key to the old car of theirs. He strolled over to the potted flower next to the front door, reaching into the dirt and extracting out the large metal key. He hurried to the car, hoping in and starting it as Nathan poked his head out from his bedroom window. "Hey what the hell are you doing?" He called out to Peter, who didn't even respond back as he pulled away from the driveway.

It took some time, and precision trying to drive and work the radio to find the signal's location. But after a good half hour and three near crashes later, he found a field outside of the city that had a faint but noticeable smoke stream coming out of a part of it. In a fevered pitch now, Peter got out of the car, not even bothering to close the door behind him. As he rushed out to the smoke that coincidentally was making his radio louder and louder. Finally he reached a point where he had to stop, partly due to the exhaustion of him running when he wasn't in the best shape, but mostly due to what now laid before him.

Slowly and carefully standing before a crater, the inside contained a strange metallic object at it's center, looking like something out of a sci-fi movie. Approaching the... thing as cautiously as he could, he leapt back as a part of the craft opened before him as he landed in the soft dirt, frozen in a mixture of paralyzing fear and excitement. The section, which he figured was some kind of doorway, completely opened upwards, and soon Peter watched a figure slowly step out. He couldn't believe what he was seeing; a humanoid being, roughly 6'4 in height, with a lean build stepped out. It's 'skin' was a semi dark shade of pink, it's larger than average eyes were a deep blue. On each hand (there were only two), it only had two fingers and a thumb, though it was clearly born that way. It's mouth, if you could call it that, seemed to have a separation at the center of it's jaw on it's face, which suggested an almost snake like 'separating' mandible, while the upper portion of it's mouth seemed similar to a human's, though the 'lips' were anything but human. It seemed to be wearing some kind of strange clothing, though it was burnt and torn.

The being stopped once it was outside of the craft, and turned to look right at Peter. Peter was having a debate in himself of wither he should scream, or say hi, but didn't get a chance to act on either before the being suddenly awkwardly collapsed to the ground. Acting out of instinct, Peter dragged his frozen-in-fear body up off of the ground, running over to the creature before kneeling beside it carefully. He gently positioned the being over to have it rest on its back, and quickly noticed a large piece of shrapnel lodged into its abdominal area. The wound excreting a mostly clear, almost mucous like substance that Peter could only assume was blood. The creature's eyes fluttered open, and looked upon Peter's face.

"... Uh... you're hurt. I don't know if you understand this, but I'm going to try to help you." Peter stated, voice shaking about as much as his hands were. He reached over to grab the shrapnel, when suddenly he felt a very strange feeling 'hand' grab onto his wrist. It didn't squeeze, and didn't seem to be threatening in any way, causing Peter to look into the creature's eyes again. It felt strange to Peter as he felt his whole slowly start to feel lighter and lighter as suddenly...

_Images began flashing though his mind, so many, so fast, Peter felt like he couldn't possibly process it all, almost as if his brain was going to collapse onto itself from the overloading, suddenly though he saw things clear as day. He saw a strange, dark world covered in an unrecognizable sort of earth or soil, and many creatures that looked much like the one that lay before him._

_Then there were explosions, people started dying, and then he saw something else. Big, strong looking creatures, also humanoid, but these were dark green, with strange, almost elf like ears, but yellow eyes, and large, fang filled mouths. Then he saw one of the pink aliens, the one in front of him now, being handed a strange device, before getting into the vessel that had just now crashed._

_Peter also saw a very large ship, filled with the green aliens, heading towards Earth._

"SHIT!" Peter blurted out, falling backward, suddenly realizing he was back on earth, still in the crater. He felt jittery, unstable, like he just took a shot of pure adrenaline to his now rapidly pulsing heart. His feelings were a jumbled mess. He felt scared, but mostly a deep feeling of sadness, as if he lost something close to him. He stared at the alien on the ground, and realized that it was his sorrow that he was feeling, not his own. His hand was clenched tightly into a fist, and he vaguely felt something crushed between his fingers, but wasn't focused enough to consider looking at it.

Peter managed to crawl over to the wounded alien, tears streaming from his eyes, tears shed for someone he didn't know, but felt their loss. The alien slowly, stopping briefly in clear pain, reached into it's pocket on it's clothing, and pulled out the device Peter had seen in his vision. Peter stared at it silently, before the being held it out to him. Somehow, someway, Peter knew exactly what it was and what it'll do. He reluctantly took the gun shaped device into his hand, sniffing loudly, wiping away the tears from his face.

Just then the alien jerked its head up, looking off into the distance. Peter tried to see what it was pointing at, but didn't see anything. The Alien then looked into Peter's eyes again, before pointing back in the direction that Peter had come from. Peter couldn't understand what it was trying to say...

'Go...'

Peter heard it, but didn't know where it came from, the alien's mouth mouth never moved but he distinctly heard...

'GO!'

Not hesitating, Peter quickly pushed himself to his feet, abandoning his radio completely without thought and ran out of the small crater. He didn't stop running till he got back to his car, getting in only to see out of the corner of his eyes a sudden explosion from where the crater was a bright light of orange light. Peter sat there for a moment, breathing heavily and trying desperately to piece together everything that had just happened to him in his head.

Peter looked down at his still clenched hand, and opened it just enough to see a piece of material that the alien wore resting in his palm. He realized he must have accidentally ripped it off when he woke up from... whatever had happened in his brain. Peter suddenly had a moment of clarity, the images in his head, along with the information that it brought all making sense to him rather abruptly. There wasn't much time, and he wasn't sure what the Hell to do, at first, but finally realized the first thing should be was getting out of there. He could figure the rest later. He shoved the material into his pocket and after fumbling with the keys, turned the car on and peeled away from the scene, just trying to get back home.

"Master Jason, how was ninjitsu training?" The Storm family's trusted butler, Marcus Alverson, asked Jason as he came into the house, wearing a karate gi, with a dark blue skin tight athletic one piece underneath, and a black belt dangling loosely around his waist. "Fantastic Mr. Alverson, my back's a bit sore from the sparring though." Jason responded, sweating profusely and a bit of a heavy breath to him as he took off the gi, leaving himself in the athletic gear at the moment. "I can prepare a hot pack for that back if you'd like sir?" Alverson asked as Jason thought about it, "Hm, actually, if you could please I was hoping to get a nice ice bath." Marcus chuckled, "Of course sir, even if I do find the fact that you do that incredibly silly." Jason smiled himself, their butler hadn't been with the family for too long, only around since Jason himself was one, but he had grown on him and his father quickly with his professionalism, and all around friendliness. It never felt like he did it as a job quota, more because he cared. It was something they enjoyed having, especially when Jason was around six and everything changed in the household.

After a 15 minute bath in ice which numbed out the pain in his back, Jason got out of the now soaking athletic gear and slipped into some much more comfortable, a simple white t-shirt, and some pajama pants. After resting up in his bedroom for a moment, not really watching TV or reading but just, laying in bed, looking upward, collecting his thoughts. He finally slipped off his bed and left his room to go do something to pass the time before bed. He walked down the hall of the mansion, not really thinking about much at that point, until he slipped into the game room. It was one of the bigger rooms in the mansion. Filled with assorted arcade machines, a skee-ball machine, an air hockey table, and Jason's favorite part, a fine modern styled pool table, Jason wasn't much for the arcade games (His father though is a self admitted gamer dork, even plays online on his Storm Nova gaming system from time to time.) But the pool table Jason loved spending his time on. Sure he had skills at billiards and could hustle some money off of people on it, once having taken a grand from the CEO of a company his father was trying to work with, but for Jason it was more about the feel of it. It was a quiet, calming, yet still mentally challenging thing that he could use to keep his focus sharp.

As he looked down at the mess of pool balls in front of him, a set up where the cue ball had to get past two striped balls to get to the sole remaining solid. Jason took a small swig from the plastic bottle of water that came from the room's mini fridge stocked full of it, and the more 'adult' beverages. As Jason arched himself low, his pool cue's tip lined sharply up to the cue. His focus diverted for a brief moment when he could swear he felt some vibrations and saw the pool balls ahead of him wiggle back and forth ever so gently. He stopped himself from shooting, standing back upright as he glanced around curious. Finally he shook his head, must've been his imagination. The room's once quiet mood was making him a little tense when he felt his iphone give off its notice about a new text message.

As Jason pulled the Storm smartphone out of his pajama pant's pocket, he unlocked the phone to see a weird arrange of jumbled misspellings, bad grammar, and incorrect punctuations. Now normally he expected this sort've thing from some of his... dumber friends. However he quickly realized that this text message was actually from Peter. To Jason this worried him, Peter text messaging alone was rare, and when he did the thing would read like a well pronounced letter. It demanded that Jason had to get over to his house immediately. Something Jason wasn't going to take lightly as he stopped what he was doing, heading back to his room to get dressed and grab his car keys. There was a faint mixture of worry and curiosity running though him.

The RX-8 pulled up to the Richards' house, stopping right in front of Nathan's car as Jason noticed right away that their parents weren't home. On the way over Jason heard a news story about how there was some strange crash out near the city that caused the vibrations he noticed earlier. However SHIELD was already on the scene, reporting that it was just an asteroid.

As Jason came up to the front door he couldn't help but noticed that the front door was wide open, causing him to worry just a little more. Still Jason showed himself in. "Hello? Peter? You in here buddy?" Suddenly a hand reached out from nowhere and clasped over Jason's mouth, who realized immediately it belonged to a freaked out looking Peter, who made a low, hushing sound, looking around cautiously. "Too... loud. I don't want Nathan to hear this... so follow me... quietly." Peter told him, sounding just a tad unhinged as he finally let go of Jason's mouth, only to now grab him by the front of his t-shirt and literally drag him up the stairs towards his room.

Peter quickly opened the door to his room, far more bright then it usually is, after yanking Jason in before closing the door behind himself, Jason noticed immediately that scattered all over the room were papers, some crushed and mangled and others just simply laying there. All of them covered in extravagant formulas, quickly drawn out maps, and what appeared to be weird looking doodles. Finally Peter spoke up, speaking in a language Jason wasn't used to hearing from him... the language of insanity.

"I started to think that it wasn't possible but it makes complete sense once you take into account that it's not as simple as light speed or warp speed but controlled black hole like teleportation that makes travel seem instantaneous everyone had it wrong there is no charting hyperspace there's just making sure that the other end of the hole doesn't open up into the center of a star or another planet outside of that everything is exactly as I expected but the only question is how do we compete with their technology when they are hundreds of thousands of years older than us and have had great experience in taking of worlds it will take more than these abilities and blind luck to get this right but we can't take guesses because we only have one shot at this maybe if I can figure out the base technology I can come up with a sort of EMP capable of shutting down their systems or possibly take them over I could start with a rough prototype that I can work on further once I get some materials now first what will need to be done is figure out a way to detect them from others and isolate them but we can't create a panic because then people will riot and go crazy and we have to keep everyone oblivious if we hope to succeed maybe is..."

As Peter's ramblings continued he darted around from one edge to another, randomly picking up notes off of the floor or his bed to scribble more notes on them as he muttered to himself. He hit himself on the head with his fist a few times, as if trying to forcibly make his brain work harder. By now seemingly ignoring the man he not only called over but forced up into his ransacked room. As Jason watched all this insanity unfolds before him, he too had a lot of thoughts going though his head, but clearly unlike Peter they boiled down to either one of two possible scenario for what was unfolding before him...

Situation Explanation number 1: There was something super extra freaky in that asteroid SHIELD found that is causing smart people like Peter to lose it.

Or.

Situation Explanation number 2: ...Peter was about to try and rape him. He wasn't sure how or why... but he just had a suspicion.

"Oooooookkkkaaayyyy..." Jason slowly began, slowly trying to open the door behind himself without making any noise. Already getting a headache from trying to piece together what was happening in front of him. "I'm just... I'm just going to leave now... and when I see you next... running around with an aluminum foil hat on... I'm going to pretend I don't know you." Jason stated, as he finally had the door open and turned to get out of there. Only for Peter to suddenly dart to the door, slamming it shut on Jason and getting right up in his face. There was anger brewing off of him in his eye twitched and body shook.

"HAVEN'T YOU BEEN LISTENING TO ANY OF THIS? We have to do something or we are ROYALLY FUCKED!" Peter blurted out, in that moment doing two things he's hardly ever done in his life. Scream in someone's face, and swearing. Jason meanwhile only had one thought.

'Oh God it's option two...'

"He told me exactly what was going to happen and I'd rather not be a slave and I don't think you want that either so we really need to get organized and figure out how we're going to stop this so you really need to stay focused!" Peter told Jason as he couldn't figure out how Jason could be acting this way, when things were far too serious to be acting silly. Suddenly there was a call from the next room over, it was Nathan's voice, "Peter dude! What the fuck are you yelling about?" Peter realized immediately what he was doing, Peter stopped himself for a moment to calm down as he poked his head past Jason's body, "Nothing! Don't worry about it!" He called out in a rather creepy sweet tone.

"Look Peter, I have NO idea what the hell you're talking about right now. But you are really... REALLY... starting to invade my comfort zone right now." Jason told him as he began to slowly and carefully push Peter off of him. "I mean what is this about? That asteroid that landed nearby? That thing is just space debris and rocks floating around." Part of Jason still wondered why Peter was acting like this, but more now he's worried about his friend's mental well-being. Jason led Peter over to his bed, letting him sit himself down as Jason took a seat in the computer chair on the other end of the small room. "It... it wasn't an asteroid. It was this space craft with an alien inside of it. I was there... I saw it, it... it spoke to me... I think... I don't know I just know that we have to figure out what we're going to do or the Skrull Empire is going to conquer us and either wipe us out or use us as slaves I'm a little confused on that part but I don't like either possibility personally..." Jason paused for a moment, space craft? Aliens? Skrull?

Jason leaned in on the chair as he looked at Peter, trying to figure out what's going on in his friend's brain. "Okay Peter, I just want you to take a nice, deep breath, and explain to me what exactly it is that's going on here. Because frankly I still don't have a clue what you're talking about." Jason started into, leaning back in the chair a little bit. "Because when I was on my way here. The radio was reporting that some kind of asteroid had crash landed not too far from the city and SHIELD was reporting no causalities. But what you're saying is... you got there first or something?" "I think I'd be arrested if I got there after..." Peter sniped, having a hard time thinking straight considering his brain just felt mushy at the moment. "Yes...I got there first. The alien was hurt he needed help...I tried to help him but he...he did something to my head. He...told me things. Showed me what the Skrull race did to his people, and what they wanted to do to us. He came here to warn us, to save us from his people's fate. He watched his people, his loved ones die...yet he still thought about others. You don't know what it's like to lose someone close to you but I do, and if we're going to stop this we have to work fast." Peter started. Immediately Jason glared at Peter. Not knowing what it's like to lose someone? Jason knew ALL too well what that's like. Peter head snapped up, "Oh right... sorry... but it's just..." Considering Peter has never really lost anyone close to him, it was clear that the alien's thoughts were starting to jumble up with his own, the images of innocent people dying burned into his brain. He dropped from the bed to his knees as he grasped his head, eyes turning red and tears started to form in his eyes, on an emotional mental roller coaster he had absolutely no control over. "I... I just can't lose anybody else..."

What had started as a frightening scene that made Jason want to cover his rear end, now was becoming something different. Immediately forgiving and forgetting what Peter had said earlier as he got off the chair and kneeled over next to Peter, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "Hey man come on Peter just calm down." Sure, a part of him still didn't believe a part of this, but when his best friend has an emotional breakdown over something, it has to... maybe be somewhat true? Sure Peter was a bit nutty sometimes in his mad professor ways, but was there any way he was making all of this up? "Well did this... alien like... say or give you something to help stop these... other aliens or something?" Jason asked, trying to be helpful. Finally Peter stopped crying, remembering what happened in the crater. He began crawling around the floor, pushing away papers in waves, he couldn't remember where it was, but it was on the floor last. Finally he felt something and pulled out an old rag he hid it in, pulling the gun device from earlier out of it and placing it gently in front of Jason. "That."

It was a slick, metallic, and defiantly not human looking gun shaped object. Built for something with not a whole lot of fingers like a human, and seemed to have something glowing a bright green in the center. As Jason looked downward at what was admittedly a very foreign looking gun thingy. Jason just looked at it, than over to Zach, before his eyes go back to the machine. "So... like a laser gun I'm guessing here? How exactly is one laser gun supposed to stop an empire? If one was to guess that it was an empire to begin with." Jason asked, his hand giving the back of the device a very light flick that moved it a centimeter across the papers below it. "It's not a laser, well not in that sense." Peter stated, staring at the device. "It was designed to make certain people better. It's built to...well...in normal person speak, it's supposed to change a person's attributes and very DNA strains in such a way that they become more than whatever they were before."

Peter wished he could explain it to Jason in the way that he knew best, it would make a lot more sense. However, he knew that on Jason it would just be a jumble of words thrown together, so this was going to have to do.

"Simply put... it will give us super powers."

All Jason could give to Peter's simple yet frankly insane idea was just a simple sigh, followed with an irritated rubbing of his nose, his eyes tightly held shut as he finished it off with a slow shaking of his head. He tried to stick with Peter on this one, after all that's what you do with your friends, but finally he had enough of this insanity. As Jason stood up from the front of Peter's bed he gave his friend a good stern look before speaking. "Look... I don't know what's going on in that head of yours. If you're just tired and read too many comic books or something. But I'm just going to leave you to your thoughts and hope that sooner or later you snap out of... whatever the hell this is." He told him before making his exit to the door. Worried now about what it is that's causing Peter to act this way, if it's permanent, and how soon he should call Karen to warn her about Peter's... mind set.

As Jason got up and started to leave slowly, Peter became more and more angry. Even his friend, his best friend no less, could give him the benefit of a doubt. He was pissed, blinded by the anger inside of him. He just wanted for someone to listen for once to him, to understand what he was saying. He was sick and tired of people treating him like he was just some nerdy little freak with crazy ideas that people would only listen too when he had proof.

His brains kept thinking about all of the annoying things going on in his life, the way he was treated by some people, and add on top of that his own friend unwilling to hear him out. His brain was so preoccupied by angry thoughts, he almost didn't even notice his own hand reaching down, wrapping his fingers around the device, and aiming the barrel of the alien technology at Jason's back. Jason casually was making his way to the door, a mix of mildly annoyed and worried about the man he was leaving behind to wallow in his own insanity. Just then however a flash of green came over him, washing over his eyes before suddenly vanishing and leaving him in a completely almost drug induced feeling haze. His body felt like it was going to fry to death and yet freeze to death at the same time, the world around him a swirling mess that wouldn't let him keep steady footing. All of which was causing him to slam into the door instead of opening it, sweating profusely and leaving him wide eyed and leaning against the door suddenly gasping for air.

"Peter... wha... what the hell did you just do?" Jason asked, feeling his beating heart almost audible in his breath. As Jason stayed leaning against the door, body feeling like it was going though the worst flu he ever had. Peter noted immediately that amongst Jason's problems, his eyes slowly turned. Their normal blue to an almost blood red color. Slowly Jason peeled himself off of the door, grasping his head in pain before it slowly came back up, his now red eyes glowing heavily as the both of his hands started to glow an ominous red and orange...

From the fire they now emitted


	3. Chapter Three

"I proved my point." Peter stated simply, casually walking over and picking up pieces of paper. Casually noticing the fire coming off of Jason's arms, a part of him wanted to be shocked, amazed at what he was seeing. Though in a way he already knew to be expecting this stuff now. "Don't panic, you're just fine." Peter calmly told Jason, "even if you do deserve a good kick in the nuts." He muttered. "Your body is making the necessary changes, once that's done, you'll be exactly what I told you." Jason didn't hear any of that, his brain needing to start focusing back on reality and not its previous dizzy state. He brought one of his flaming hands up to his head. "Ugh... I should beat your ass in right now you know that? Then maybe leave you in front of Flash's house in nothing but your underwear. Fucking piece of..." It was at this point Jason now realized what had happened to him, seeing the bright flames crawling up his forearms to his elbow where they were starting to burn the sleeves of his shirt.

Naturally he did what any self respecting... smart person would do when confronted with this situation... RUN AND SCREAM LIKE A GIRL!

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Jason's scream permeated though out the house as he dashed out of Peter's room, causing Nathan to almost leap out of his bed in fright as he watched Jason who he could've sworn was on fire run past his room's open door. Jason ran down the stairs and into the kitchen where he quickly spun the sink's faucet to cold water, which he threw his arms under to put the flames out. He stopped for a moment, breathing in and out as he tried to calm down. "Oh... oh thank god..." Jason muttered to himself as he finally turned the sink off and started looking for a towel to dry his arms off with. He then looked down at them to examine...

They were on fire again.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" Jason continued to run around the first floor of the house wildly flailing his arms around to extinguish the flames. "JASON! Jason you dumb ass stop whining and listen to me!" Peter called out to him finally catching up and grabbing the fire extinguisher from the kitchen. As Jason ran around Peter got in front of him and pulled the trigger, blasting Jason with the foamy substance and putting the fire on his arms out. Peter then calmly put the fire extinguisher down, walking up to Jason and giving him a once over before promptly slapped him across the face. "SHUT UP!" Peter screamed. "Your hands weren't burning; didn't you even notice that it didn't hurt? Shit."

Peter was breathing heavy, before walking over to a chair and flopping down on it, now regretting wasting a shot on someone who screams like a girl. "Dude! What the fuck is going on here?" Both Jason and Peter looked up to where Nathan was standing at the stairs, dumbfounded at what he was looking at. "What the hell just happened? I'm just lying in bed trying to watch TV, next thing I know Jason's screaming down the hall with orange glowing stuff all on him and yelling downstairs. And... Wait did you just use the fire extinguisher?" Nathan asked, clearly annoyed to have to be doing this in the first place. Jason spoke up, "Oh you'd like to know? Well you're wise older brother here..." "Accidentally got his arms covered in some experimental chemicals I was working on. He said it was burning his skin so I doused him with the fire extinguisher since I know it would deactivate the compound." Peter told him, immediately giving Jason the look that stated _'shut up'_. "It's nothing really, he's fine now. Its harmless really, just causes some irritation. I'm sorry we bothered you." Peter told Nathan as Jason first gave Peter a look of annoyance, then confusion, then realization, then a phony smile to Nathan.

Nathan just looked at the both of them for a moment knowing what he had just heard was a load of crap. All he did in response to them was rolled his eyes at the scene before him. "Whatever just make sure everything's cleaned up before you go to bed..." He told Peter as he strolled back upstairs. The two watched him leave and as soon as they both heard his door closed Jason was immediately in front of Peter's face, angry as Hell as his eyes glowed and a sudden burst of fire emitted from the top of his head. "What the fuck is wrong with you, you little twerp?" Jason gritted out though his teeth. "Shooting me with some experimental ray bullshit? I should beat you to within an inch of your life." Needless to say Jason was furious that all this had happened and having absolutely no say in it, especially now that he was saddled with powers that could be a major problem.

"Oh, and what would that get you? I just gave you incredible powers, and the chance to do something legitimately good with your life. Look... I'm sorry for zapping you without asking, alright? But you don't understand what my brain has just been through. I lost a family that isn't mine, yet I feel like they were. I can remember their faces, remember what someone else felt for them, and remember seeing them die. So forgive me if I'm not exactly in my right state of mind right now." Peter shook his head, just honestly far more stressed out than Jason understood. He tried to stay calm, and not lose it again. "I've been given an incredible, horrifying responsibility, and all I ask is that you listen, believe, and help me." Peter pleaded a look of utter stress on his face.

Sure, everything Peter has said up until now has been completely crazy. However now that he's had his hands on fire without any actual burning, he's willing to give Peter's crazy speak a better listen. "Alright yeah, I'm sorry." Jason sheepishly replied as he grimaced a bit from guilt. The fire on top of his head went out suddenly as he took a seat next to his friend. "Alright, I guess... as crazy as this crap is. I'm willing to listen. So what is the plan?" Jason asked. "The plan is far less simple than it sounds, but I figure just find the biggest bad asses we can and give them all powers. Anybody with fighting experience, maybe former military or police, hell even athletes, just anyone who can take physical and emotional pressure." Peter told him, taking a deep breath. He was still worried about just how quickly they could find people that fit those criteria, but he had to stay focused.

"I've got a plan, but you're going to have to help."

~The Next Day~

How stupid do they think he is? Why on Earth was Peter taking him for some kind of idiot? He knows what he saw, Jason running past his room screaming, hands, both of them, on fire. Chemicals his ass. After school had passed and he dropped Peter back off at the house. He strolled down the street, eying the addresses of the buildings he went past, Nathan had to keep trying to remind himself what the actual address of the place was. He's never been there before; hell he barely speaks to her as much as his older brother does. However she's been extremely kind to her every time they did. Besides, she knows both Jason and Peter, and maybe just up they're up too.

_"I'm sorry Karen; the ligament tear in your ankle just isn't going to heal correctly at this point..."_

Those words changed Karen Walters' life forever. Once she was a natural athlete, a three sport wiz kid who had agents ready to sign her to whatever contracts they could. But then she had to piss it all away with one careless slide into second during a softball game. One slide that she didn't even need to do, one slide that caused her leg to hyperextend, have her foot slam violently into the base that had no give. There she was now, looking at all her sports accolades on the family's living room wall. Newspaper reports, photos, trophies, honors, she knew looking at all of it wasn't going to change things or magically give her some kind of answer to the question of what now. What to do next with her life.

Finally there was a doorbell ring that snapped her out of her thought process. She awkwardly limped over to the door, looking though the peep hole before swinging it open. "Oh hey..." She totally forgot his name... "...Peter's brother! Come on in what brings you here? Did you want something to drink?" She asked, already trying to bring him in herself with an arm around the shoulder. Such an innocent and happy smile that it was impossible to feel bothered in anyways.

"Uh, yeah thanks." Nathan responded, slipping out of Karen's grasp as he came into the house. "It's Nathan by the way." He welcomed himself in, noticing that she seemed to be the only one home right now. "So you're friends with Peter and Jason right? Have... either of them spoken to you lately?" He asked quizzically as he just looked around the house a little bit. "Well first off go ahead and take a seat." Karen gestured to the couch that she went past and towards the kitchen before stopping and looking back at Nathan. "Um, I'm going to get something to drink. Sure you don't want anything?" She asked as she walked into the kitchen.

Nathan figured by now she wasn't going to take no for an answer. So might as well... "Well sure, just some water would be fine." He called out to her, which lead to her coming back with two bottles of water, one she tossed over to Nathan who catches it with ease. "Alright well then, Jason and Peter..." She mentioned taking a seat on the other opposing couch in the living room. "Well yeah... I know the both of them, but I haven't heard much from either of them lately. Peter especially, he's just been so distant lately. Why what's up?" Karen took a sip of her water as she leaned back in the couch.

"Well last night they were both over at my, well our place." He started, remembering to add in that Peter did in fact live there. "Well... I know this is going to sounds nuts. But like there was this yelling, like angry yelling, screaming. So already something is going on. Well then next thing I know..." Nathan paused, trying to figure out just how one explains what the hell happened. "Jason like ran past my room... with his... hands... on fire." God even just saying it sounds weird. "Uh...huh..." Karen had to pause, trying to put what she heard into consideration. "So... do we need to call the police on Peter or something? That he's a pyromaniac now? I mean this isn't exactly what I know him for." Karen glanced away for a moment trying to think about it more, biting her lip a little. "I mean it kind of goes without saying."

"Well that's just it though; see it took me a moment to get over to him and Peter who chased after him. When I did Peter had the fire extinguisher out and had sprayed Jason. When I got over to see what was going on. I remember looking at Jason's arms, and granted they were a bit covered in white foam, but I remember that they... they weren't even a bit burnt. They looked perfectly fine." That got Karen's attention. She leaned back in the chair and just looked at Nathan confused, as if at any minute he'd finally tell her it was all a prank, Ashton Kutcher comes out, they all laugh, then things move on. However there was nothing. Nathan was just looking back at her. Seemingly as confused. "Wait... wait. So it wasn't burnt... like at all." Karen asked startled, Nathan just shook his head. "Huh, that's crazy. I mean maybe it was some chemical that just stayed on the skin and didn't let the fire burn him but... Peter isn't the kind of guy who would do something like that to a friend." Karen responded, taking another sip of water. "See that's where things get weird though. Because later I ran into him while he was on the way out..."

_Jason couldn't help but just stare at this thing Peter had just given him. Some super freaky sci-fi shit was in his hands, capable of turning normal people into fucking superheroes. That... that still blew his mind. As he strolled towards the door however, Peter suddenly came up next to him, just leaving the kitchen with a can of cola in his hands. "Hey Jason, hope your hands heal up." He told him, a very slight bit of sarcasm in his voice. Jason had the gun in his hand and in view of her for a moment before very sloppily hiding it as he sheepishly grinned at Nathan. "Uh yeah thanks... uh yeah hope they do too have to go bye now!" He then bolted for the door and his car before driving off without saying another word, leaving behind a very confused Nathan._

"I know all of this probably sounds insane but I know what I saw. Like that gun thing he was holding didn't look normal at all. It didn't look fake or plastic or anything like that. Like some genuine... whatever the hell it is." Nathan finally decided to just stop thinking about it anymore, feeling a headache throbbing on as he finished the bottle of water in a chug and put the bottle next to him. "Really? A gun?" Karen paused, thinking about it. It sounded cool. Not that she supported Gun violence or anything, but they're neat and she wanted to see this 'sci-fi gun'. Did she believe Nathan? Not really. But she was curious as too what's going on. "Well I say we talk to Jason about it. He'll tell us if we bug him about it long enough. Hell I can even manhandle him a bit if need be."

As the 1994 Ford Taurus pulled up to the house that it clearly had no business being in front of. Nathan peered up and around realizing he actually hasn't been in the house before... he has driven PAST it, but never past the large gates and security guard. Peter had, and the way he described the place made it sound awesome. A modern calling to technology and computers. Each room in the house designed to turn on instantly when someone enters it and turn off at voice command; the coffee table is a touch computer system. All sorts of futuristic tech that was coming from Jason's dad's company, Storm Electronics.

Granted they were there for answers, not gawking at techno-geek chic.

As Nathan pulled up the Storm family's butler was leaving the house with another man in tow. "Hey, Nathan, Karen, what brings the both of you over?" It was the CEO himself, William Storm, President and CEO of Storm Electronics. Stocky looking man who had a nice suit on, glasses, and was black, now graying ponytail. "Hey Mr. Storm, we're just here to see Jason, is he home right now?" Nathan asked, his head popping out of the ratty looking car. "Yeah he should actually be the only one home right now." Mr. Storm made his way over to the Bentley out in the front of the mansion, his butler holding the passenger door open for him. "Well I have some business at the office to take care of, you kids have fun okay?" He waved to them as Nathan nodded to Karen over the news of the empty home. Giving a grin that suggested this was very good... in a very bad way for Jason. Honestly everything Jason and Peter could be doing freaked Nathan out, made him worry, and wonder if Jason was secretly a trekkie and is just really ashamed to admit it.

Karen marveled at the house, but it didn't really impress her. Sure, she'd have fun pushing buttons but in the end a house was a house. She waved to Mr. Storm, staring at the car more than anything. With a wistful sigh watching Mr. Storm leave she glanced back to Nathan. "Now we don't know if he's alone. Susan or her mom might be around." "Yeah... right." Nathan said chuckling, knowing full well her mom probably wasn't. The new Mrs. Storm spent a lot of time out, the new riches allowing her to chase her dreams and she was enjoying it. She went to classes, joined a few charity functions and, yes, went shopping. Susan was even more likely to be out. Not going shopping or taking more classes, just out. She hated being at the big endless house with more rooms than three times the people actually living there.

The two approached the front door, Nathan pressing in the buzzer. There was a brief moment of quiet before the door slowly opened. Jason Storm looked at the two of them, rubbing his eyes and looking tired somewhat. "Oh hey Nate... Karen. What brings you two..." Jason's eyes shot open realizing that it was pretty clear what brought them there. He immediately tried closing the door. "Hey Jason, is that any way to treat your friends?" Karen responded, her quick reflexes grabbing the door before it closed and flipping it back open. The two welcomed themselves in as Jason stepped back, becoming worried since he knew why they were there. "I uh... guys this really isn't a good time I..."

"Well we just happened to be in the area, just wanted to see how your arms were." Nathan sharply responded. "They're... good..." Jason responded, his fear causing him to reach his arm up to wipe his brow (Even though he hasn't sweated even a little since the incident last night, which is really freaking him out) only to immediately bring it back down and hide it. "Come on Jason, even you have to admit the story is a little weird, what happened last night." Karen interjected; she stepped forward, looking to calm Jason down before she noticed something. "Wait, what happened to your eyes? I thought they were blue." Jason now was now panicking completely as he stumbled back. "Look guys please just go away; I'm not really I just... ugh..." He clinched his head, completely paralyzed as he looked back up at the two in front of him, his eyes glowing bright. "I..."

Before he could finish, Jason caught fire.

All of Jason engulfed in flames as both Karen and Nathan leapt back. Jason's clothes falling off of him charred as he started floating off the ground. "OH MY GOD FIRE HIM FIRE HE'S ON FIRE!" Nathan screamed in complete confusion, "WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT? YOU! JASON! FIRE!" Karen joined in with as Jason shook his head, now more embarrassed than scared as he just looked down at the both of them. "See? This is what I was scared about." He stated simply as the fire vaporized off of him as suddenly as it came. Jason casually dropping back onto his feet. "Look, if you two promise to calm down about this. I'll try to explain everything... okay?" Jason asked, so relaxed about what happened that it caused Nathan to be even more taken back. "Okay, um. You can explain... and then we'll see if I relax." Karen suggested, her voice a little weak. "What the fuck just happened? Since when can you do that? And why? What does Peter have to do with this?" "Actually not to interrupt but uh... I got a better question to ask right now." Nathan was behind Karen, averting his eyes, "Jason, can you _please_ go put some pants on first?" Nathan asked as Jason just then realized what was going on. Jason looked down, then back up sharply as he quickly went for his charred clothes. Holding them cheaply over his naughty bits with a very embarrassed cheap attempt at a smile on his face. "Yeah... to my room." He stated as he started slipping down the hall slowly, keeping the charred clothes over himself.

When Nathan and Karen were finally let into Jason's room, he had switched into a new pair of jeans and t-shirt. He then told them everything he could recall Peter telling him. About the alien, the spacecraft that's being called an asteroid by SHIELD, the skrulls, the gun and its abilities, everything. He fiddled nervously with his t shirt as he did so, himself not being all that comfortable with what's going on. Finally when he finished he stopped to a completely stunned Nathan and Karen. Both of whom just stared at him, then at each other. There was an awkward silence in the room before finally

"Dude... DUDE! THAT IS AWESOME!"

Karen pumped her fists as she gave a smile a mile wide. Her voice didn't have sarcasm or doubt. The world to her had shifted. Her best friend could catch on fire but even as the shock was clinging to her, she wore it off. "Oh oh oh oh Jason, shoot me with the gun!" She insisted, "I want to help. I knew SHIELD wasn't to be trusted. I did my research. They have a lot more power than you think you know. They can do a lot without telling us anything. Oh man, what can Peter do? Is it all fire? Do you know what the skrulls look like?" Before she could keep rambling, Jason held up a hand to interrupt her, "Uh... actually no I don't think its all fire based. I mean neither of us knows what this thing is really capable of actually. Peter hasn't even shot himself with it as far as I know." He tried to chime in with as Karen seemed to be still gleaming about the possibilities.

Jason however scratched his chin. "Uh Karen honestly, I don't know how to break this to you, but I don't know if Peter would be keen on the idea." Karen scuffed at the notion, Peter not being keen on the idea wasn't even close to being on her list of reasons to not do this. "Dude if he doesn't like the idea of me coming into this, and kick all sorts of ass, then maybe next time he should avoid creepy mysterious alien beings." Karen stated as if it was a clear as day fact. Jason mentally conceded the point.

However just as Jason was about to respond Nathan coughed to get his attention. Having been quiet this whole time in thought. "Actually, I want in too." Nathan calmly stated with arms crossed. "Oh for fuck's sake you too?" Jason moaned, seeing this great plan of Peter's getting destroyed before his very eyes. "Look I know I'm maybe not athletically gifted like Karen or like hyper super smart like my older brother. But I also can't let him get caught up in this by himself. Poor guy must be having fits over it." Nathan said, Jason only responding with a slow shaking of his head. "You have no idea..." Jason calmly stated as Karen wrapped an arm around Nathan. "See Jason we're game." Karen responded, "Look if you don't think Peter wants this, it's cool. I can say I wrestled it from you, and shot Nathan and me. It'll be fine, come on, we're friends right? We need to do this together." "Karen, what about your bad leg?" "Pffft, yeah, like that'd stop me. I'd do this one legged if it meant getting to kick ass with the one good leg."

Jason groaned to himself, finally reaching over to the nightstand where the gun was and held it in his hands before glancing back up at his two friends. "Look I... I can do this, but you guys need to realize that this isn't just some temporary thing. If I shoot you with this, there's no going back, and as far as I know. We're going to be in some serious shit." Jason told them, already feeling sick to his stomach about having to be in it, and without his permission no less. "Honestly, I don't even want to do it. Peter, for all intensive purposes, made me because of the whole black belt and I guess family ties and stuff. I mean honestly the whole idea is frightening." For Jason having to come out and admit fear on his part was a big deal. One that didn't go unnoticed by Karen or Nathan.

As both Nathan and Karen came up and sat on the bed with Jason at different points, Nathan spoke up first, "Yeah man that's messed up. But come on, you know as much as we do that this is important. If everything Pete said was true, we need to step up. I mean who else can we get to do this? It's not like you can waltz into NYPD with this ray gun thingy and start proclaiming the need for people to save humanity from aliens." "Exactly." Karen added, "If Peter's getting into this mess, the least we can do as friends is see him through it." "Man we sound sappy as fuck right now." Nathan quickly pointed out, which caused a small chuckle out of Jason. "Alright alright, if you guys are serious then I guess I could do worst." Jason started to prep the device in his hands as he glanced up at the two new members of the group. "Well who's going first?" Jason asked to an immediately reaction from Karen, "Oh oh oh me me me!" Karen proclaimed hoping awkwardly up and down despite the bad leg. Nathan and Jason both glanced at one another then back at Karen. Finally Jason stood up from the bed, taking a deep breath as Karen smiled and stood upright like she was getting her picture taken. Jason eased his arm and eyed Karen from behind the device. "By the way, fair warning, this first part kind've sucks." He told her before pulling the trigger.

As a sudden feeling like getting socked in the gut overwhelmed Karen she fell back to the floor. Slowly trying to get to her feet as her entire body and spirit felt almost ripped through and apart. Every fiber of her muscle structure all hurt at the same time, leaving Karen to grasp at herself in pain. Nathan watching on took a step forward in concern but Jason put an arm out, shaking his head to Nate as they both helplessly watched on. For what felt like forever to Karen it was all torture, unending aching muscles that felt like they were being prodded by needles. However as this happened her skin color started to slide from it's peachy color into more green, a lime green at first darkening in hue. Even her hair turned the same color as she had turn to a deep green color in skin tone. However none of that mattered as suddenly all the pain in her muscles slowly, ever so slowly gave way to growth. It wasn't much at first, but quickly the muscles grew, toning and developing as she gasped for air in pain. Clothes that used to fit slowly being shredded and torn in the growth and left to fall off or dangle from her body. Slowly however things started to slow down, in what was maybe a minute Karen's body had completely changed.

Slowly Karen started to feel better, great even. As she slowly began to upright herself she looked less like a normal athletic teenager, and more green toned muscle-bound goddess. Both Jason and Nathan's jaw dangled as Karen was slowly trying to rid her brain of the cobwebs. "Ooooooooo... you weren't kidding." She stated, her voice having even lowered slightly in tone, making her sound like a somewhat older version of herself. When she finally was fully upright, she towered over both of her friends.

"Ugh... what happened?" Karen asked still a bit dazed as she stared out to nothingness. Both Jason and Nathan just stared for a moment before Nathan spoke up. "You became green... and uh... really tall." Karen finally shook the cobwebs from her head. Looking down and taking a moment to realize the large, muscled but still beautiful body she saw was her own. Slowly a massive smile came across her face. "Holy crap... this... is... AMAZING!" She squealed to herself as she started to take a step towards Jason but immediately stopped, taking a moment to wiggle her right leg. "What? Leg still bad?" Jason asked assuming the worst. "No... no it's actually... it feels great!" Karen proclaimed, suddenly her newfound joy caused her to wrap her large arms around Nathan squeezing him in a bearhug. "Oh man already this is the best day ever!" "That's...great...please...stop...trying to...kill me... please..." Nathan could barely croak out of his throat before Karen immediately let go of him, accidentally letting him fall to the floor. "Oops sorry." Karen muttered with a slight giggle at the end. As she stood tall she didn't even notice her own clothes tattered. As she beamed she felt her body's energy, it's raw untapped power, all of it and frankly, she was now hooked.

Karen was still in complete nirvana as she started flexing her arm in and out, watching the muscle bulge up and down accordingly. Jason and Nathan watched on for a moment before Nathan finally spoke up with what they were both thinking. "Uh this is good and all Karen but... um... I don't know if we can have you going to school as a seven something foot green monster now." He pipped in with. A few years ago New York City was attacked by a mysteriously massive man who like Karen was covered in green and massively powerful. The news media had deemed him "The Hulking Monster" after a press release from Nick Fury of SHIELD about the matter. He vanished some time later, having been randomly reported as seen but never truly confirmed. So both Nathan and Jason knew her strolling around like this might cause a problem. Karen meanwhile though blissfully remained not thinking about such things as she continued to admire herself.

"Yeah that's probably true..." Karen absent mindedly replied with, sighing a bit as she admired her newfound six pack abs. She glanced over to Jason, "So uh... how do you... you know... not be on fire and stuff?" Karen asked. "Well, I mean it's kind've hard to explain but, I sort of imagine this switch in my head... like flick it up to flame on, and down to flame out." Jason admitted, causing Nathan to snort and chuckle. "Dude flame on? Please dear God tell me you're never going to say that out loud." He said trying to cover his mouth with his hand to stifle his laughter. "Well shut up it's what I do okay?" Jason snapped back which promptly got Nathan to stop, least he got put in some flaming choke hold by Jason or something of the sort. Karen meanwhile didn't join in Nathan's laughs and instead focused, mentally trying to figure out how to get her body to go back to the way it was. The process took a moment, but eventually she could feel her body slowly begin to regress back down to a more normal tone. Finally with a mournful sigh, she was back to normal, boring, Karen Walters.

She took a step towards Jason before suddenly having to stop, clinching her ankle in pain. "Agh shit!" She hopped on her good leg before finally sitting herself onto Jason's bed. "Man... God dammit." She hissed though her clinched in pain teeth. Finally after messaging her bad leg she fell back onto the bed and sighed. "Well... at least I know my powers are awesome. I mean you guys saw how big I was right?" She had gotten a smile on her face, getting over the bum ankle quickly. "Man I can't wait to see how strong I am." Karen took a moment to wallow in the awesomeness. Until a particular breeze made her realize that, as Jason and Nathan were already realizing, her clothes were all but basically gone. Quickly getting up from Jason's bed her arms frantically reached out and around herself to cover up as much as possible. "Uh... Susan wouldn't mind if I borrowed some of her things right?" Karen awkwardly asked before helping herself to the bedroom of Jason's stepsister. Nathan just glanced back over at Jason, "Great that's now two naked people I've seen today..."

As Karen came back into the room, having stolen some of Susan's clothes from back when she wasn't going through her emo period. A flowing knee length skirt and bright pink and white shirt. She merrily almost danced back into the room as Nathan started to think more about the situation. As Jason and Karen exchanged small talk about their powers he just started thinking. Having always had an imaginative brain this was one of the times in life it would give him trouble. He kept thinking of horrible powers he could wind up getting saddled with.

Nathan blinked at her, and over to Jason who was waiting on him, gun in hand. Nathan gulped, feeling that light breeze on the forehead that usually is the hint of sweating. Before what he just saw he was sure he was ready for this, now though? He meekly scratched the back of his head as he looked away from the both of them, his breath going in and out in a noticeably more rapid pace. "Uh guys? Maybe I'm just... freaking out here but I'm REALLY having second thoughts about this. I mean what could happen I just don't like the idea of having control over this or that but..." Nathan started to hyperventilate a bit when Karen got off the bed and made her way over to him. "Hey, hey, Nathan its okay you don't have to do this if you don't want. Just take some deep breaths and we can do this later. No one here wants to force you into anything..." Finally after a few more breaths Nathan slipped past Karen and stood in front of Jason with his back facing him. "Do it." Jason remained hesitant for a moment before Nathan looked back at him. "Seriously, do it, before I actually start thinking about what the hell I'm doing." Nathan closed his eyes tightly, waiting in the quiet room as Jason glanced over at Karen, only to get a shrug before going back to the now impatient Nathan and aimed down the gun's sight.

Nathan fell forward to the floor with an arm to hold him up as everything around him suddenly felt heavily swayed like on a boat over troubled water. As he tried to get his hands down onto the ground to get himself back up. He felt and saw out of the corner of his eye in shock and horror his arm almost freakishly stretch up, out, and then back down to the ground as he tried to use his other hand to balance himself. Only now both arms were long in length and only bringing back up a torso that was leaving behind the waist and legs in its own stretch. Both Jason and Karen only looked on mortified as Nathan kept struggling to upright himself. Finally Nathan's feet were on the ground, but his lengthened arms, torso, legs, and even neck all caused him to take on a freakish look. Formerly just worried about getting back up, Nathan finally had a moment to fully examine himself. He glanced down at his arms, stretched out double the usual length, across and down to the torso that now made the floor seem so distant. His hand reached up and gently clinched the side of his head. "Okay... don't worry... just relax..." He told himself, closing his eyes as he gently started to have all the parts of his body start to go back to their original lengths. "Yeah alright, I'm all good... got to admit I'm feeling pretty good." Nathan told the both of them giving a nod. He went to take in a breath to only exhale in relief when he forgot to stop himself inhaling air. Suddenly Nathan lost all footing and found himself on his back wobbling back and forth, his body now a large ball with hands, feet, and a head sticking out. "Um... help?"

Finally back to 'normal', Nathan readjusted the glasses on his face. "Okay... I promise I won't do something stupid like that again." "Good." Jason replied before going back to speaking to the both of them. "Alright we need to talk to Peter about this tonight and make sure he knows and is cool with this whole thing." Karen raised an arm to chime in. "Why don't me and Nathan head out in a little bit, somewhere private and practice with our new powers. I'll bring my camcorder and record it to show to Peter, give him an idea what we'll bring to the team." Jason nodded at the idea. "I like that, good thinking. Alright well in that case be over at Peter's house at around 7 pm. Honestly no matter what he says, I think this is going to work.


End file.
